


His Idea of Punishment

by bloodsongs



Category: The Avengers (2012), Thor (2011)
Genre: Angst, Community: norsekink, D/s, Every kink meme needs this kink filled!, Gratuitous Porn™, In which the author regrets nothing, M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Multi, Other, Smut, Tentacles, Would you like a side of angst with your tentacle smut?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-30
Updated: 2012-06-30
Packaged: 2017-11-08 21:28:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/447756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bloodsongs/pseuds/bloodsongs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How he’d crowed to himself when he’d first dragged Thor down with him with his persuasive kisses, the turn of his silver tongue as he’d beckoned Thor to his chambers. Loki’d been so proud of his malevolence, certain he’d gotten one over Thor, because when Thor touched him and fucked into him and groaned into his mouth over and over again through the dark nights, he was no longer the infallible, perfect son. </p><p>With Loki, he was nothing; he was just another sinner, a darker thing not worthy of the light, just like Loki. </p><p>Written for the Norsekink prompt: "Thor/Tentacles/Loki. Bonus points if it’s Loki’s fault. (Even more bonus points if Loki is standing there watching and making sure Thor knows he’s standing there watching.)”</p>
            </blockquote>





	His Idea of Punishment

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tyrotheterrible](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tyrotheterrible/gifts).



> This contains mild bloodplay, mild temperature play, some D/s elements and of course, tentacles.
> 
> Written for tyro, who is a goddess and a wicked, wicked enabler. Just ask anyone.
> 
> This took ages to complete because the smut just wouldn't stop (porn, write thyself!) and then, to my horror, angst started creeping in as well. It was still extremely enjoyable to write, though. I thank you all kindly for your support throughout this exceedingly perverted writing journey I decided to embark on - especially Clarice, Kate, Casandra and the lot. 
> 
> Here, have the smut in all its shameless glory.

 Loki is rather enjoying this, if he might say so himself.

"Unhand me this instant, Loki!" Thor yells from above, trapped within the sinuous coils of the slick tentacles Loki had called into being in the middle of their fight (it had seemed like uninteresting idea at the time, Loki muses, and he is now convinced it's the best idea he's had in a long while). "Fight me face-to-face, without resorting to this appalling display!"

Smirking, Loki conjures a comfortable red recliner, sits and spreads out the long lines of his body against it as he watches Thor's struggles with hooded eyes. "No, I don't believe I will," he breathes, with some delight, and laughs as Thor grunts and glares at him in response, still trying and failing to worm his way out of the dark green tendrils twining around his body. 

 "You found me, you attacked me," Loki continues reproachingly, pouring himself some wine. "In my humble abode, no less! That really was rather rude of you, brother. One would think you would have had better manners, given our upbringing. Consider this your receiving your just desserts, will you?"

 Thor curses him, writhing against the bonds that hold him in place as the tentacles slide across his skin, squeezing gently around his neck, pressing and moving up against his legs. "What have you done with these things?" Thor gasps, his angry hold on the tentacles loosening. "It's like they're draining me—"

 "Of energy?" Loki finishes for him, and his eyes are flecks of mirthful, sadistic green. "You would be correct. What would be the point of me summoning dastardly, menacing tentacles only for you to break them easily with your strength? You should know me better than that."

"Oh," Thor says softly, the fight seeping out of him. "You ignoble trickster, you…"

 Loki spares a moment to appreciate what a wanton image Thor is in that position, how oddly appealing, and licks his lips, leans forward. "You are in no position to fight me, brother," he begins pleasantly, snapping his fingers. The tentacles sway towards him, cradling Thor in their embrace, moving closer to the ground where Loki is seated. "Why don't you just enjoy it, then? It sounds like a terrible Midgardian cliché, but this is what they tend to say in their pictures: if you resist, it will just become more difficult for you."

 "What filth are you spouting, brother mine?" Thor turns his head weakly towards Loki, his glorious blond hair wet and plastered against his skin in exertion. Loki thinks it's the most beautiful sight he's ever seen. "I would never surrender against the works of such treachery, against your little machinations—"

 Loki narrows his eyes, a sudden sharp wind lashing out around him, and Thor cries out as the tentacles constrict around him cruelly and a violent electric shock thrums through the tips of their tendrils onto Thor's skin. "You were saying?"

 Thor is breathing heavily now, his eyes shut as he tries to recover from the onslaught. "Loki," he tries. "Loki—"

 "Shh, brother," Loki soothes, almost gleefully, stands up and runs a gloved hand up Thor's bare arm, torn from his struggles against his magic, against his ice-fire. "It'll just be like old times," he continues, palming Thor's jaw, tracing the back of his knuckles against the fine golden stubble. Would it burn like before, like it always did, when he kissed it? Bit angry red lines down Thor's jaw in his fury, his confused passion for his brother? "Like old times, you and I."

 A flick of his hand, and Thor's armor falls to the ground. Thor grits his teeth at the sudden cold, throws his head back as smaller tentacles, not unlike fingers materialise from thin air and begin caressing his chest, his abdomen. Deliberate, circular teasing motions — just the way Thor likes it, Loki remembers, fingers trailing maddeningly across his skin as he bucked and cursed and cried for release at Loki's mercy.

 Like old times, indeed.

 "I'm not going to be gentle, Thor." Loki's voice is low, rough with barely suppressed desire. "You've been very bad, haven't you?" His words shift into something playful, something teasing, but Loki is sure Thor knows more than anyone else how deadly Loki can be behind the words that roll off his silver tongue. "You've been very bad, and I'm going to punish you so thoroughly, you'll forget everything but my name. Understood?"

 Thor's eyes open just a fraction, humiliated blue locking on his green, and Thor is silent and proud still even when he's reduced to this, an immodest, naked god spread and exposed for Loki's pleasure. There's something to be said for that, at least.

Loki's hand is lightning-quick as he wraps his long, strong fingers around his brother's throat, and Thor makes a strangled sound at that and the combined pressure of tentacles pushing against his legs, sliding to arch serpentine against his half-hard cock.  

"I said, understood?" Loki whispers like a knife. "You will answer me, or I will make this a lot more painful for you than it has to be. Believe me, I want nothing more than to hurt you." Loki nudges at Thor's cheek, brushes his lips down Thor's ear like a trail of sin and secrets, and Thor moans at the hint of heat. "I want to break you, always, want you on your knees before me, want your complete surrender. You know this. But it doesn't have to be that way, because sometimes I can play fair, even if you think I do not."

Thor remains stubbornly quiet for a few more seconds, and just as Loki increases the pressure on that strong throat, he feels Thor swallow and his chin jerk in a nod. "Yes, Loki."

 And nothing was ever so sweet as the taste of triumph, just this side of bitter on his tongue.

"That's good, Thor," he says, nipping gently at Thor's lips, feeling Thor's eyelashes flutter shut in agonised ecstasy as he directs the tendrils around him to move, to exhilarate. "That's good," Loki repeats, pulling away to sit on his recliner again, eyes rapt and attentive on Thor's glorious form, suspended in the air, all slick sweat and sex and shame. He does so love seeing Thor reduced to his basest desires like this, to be completely vulnerable and with Loki completely in control.

It is a dangerous kind of addiction that he couldn't restrain in Asgard, and he suspects he will never be able to. Not when Thor is so beautiful, his God of Thunder, his clueless and powerful brother, his, his, _his_ —

The sudden overwhelming surge of possessiveness that flashes through him shakes him, leaves him breathless, and Loki shifts to compose himself, yanking over his usual calm veneer. It is ridiculous how Thor affects him, always, this pull of love and hate he cannot disregard with his brother.

"Loki," Thor says his name, feverish, a little like the beginning of a mantra. "What—"

Loki waves his hands again, and Thor stops, his lips parting in a quiet moan as the tentacles pry his arms apart from his body, spreads his legs. They tease him the way Loki always does, with Loki's teeth dragging deep over Thor's skin, lips hot with want as he kisses Thor everywhere, touches him everywhere, possesses him wholly as Thor arches into him, bucks into him, again and again, and again.

"Look at me, Thor," Loki commands quietly, and Thor hesitates before he turns to look at Loki, his breath shaky and stuttering as tendrils move up and down his cock, teasing him at the crown, tugging gently at the foreskin and around it. Their eyes meet, and Loki feels heat, sharp and intense, pooling in his stomach, feels an answering heat between his legs and moves to palm himself languidly, knowing that Thor is watching all the while. 

He has the pleasure of watching Thor's eyes darken, something deeper than lust and his anger coiling within, and shivers as he thinks of his fantasies  — Thor breaking the chains he's bound him in as he sometimes does, pinning Loki to the ground and kissing him violently, overpowering him because he's Thor, because he's Thor and sometimes there is nothing, nothing that Loki wouldn't do for him, and he would give it all up and rut like an animal against his brother as Thor bites out his name, roars it in the throes of his passion as he takes Loki against the ground, against the wall, slamming home. Thinks of the various ways Thor could have him, but Loki smiles as he thinks, not tonight. 

Tonight, it's all about Loki, and how he can both humiliate and pleasure Thor like this, to wreck him, to hurt him, to hate him, to love him.

He lets the moments draw on, imagines the slick cold against his own skin, imagines how Thor must feel as he brings him to the edge, teetering close; the frustration that must envelop him when Loki deprives him of that release, yanks him back and begins the torturous process all over again. 

Thor might be impervious to pain, but he's so, so much less unaffected when it comes to the art of pleasure. Loki feasts on that always new, always guiltily curious side to his brother like a ravenous man at a banquet, and he loves it. He really does. He loves it when Thor's body is strung like a bow, a tight curve of tension and desire, the powerful, powerful immortal he is pliant quicksilver in Loki's hands.

He magicks the tentacles further, blending the gentle strokes of teeth and tongues into where they sweep over skin. A glass of blood-red wine whisks into existence before him, slipping between his fingers at the exact moment Thor notices the difference of the pressures against him, the new additions creating a strange and intense convergence of sensations. Loki is secretly delighted when Thor lets out a shocked gasp, bites down so hard on his lip he draws blood, moving now in a  completely shameless fashion to gain more friction, more contact, more everything. Such abandon.

"Are you enjoying yourself?" Loki drawls, eyes glimmering as he plays with the delicate stem of his glass, looking up at Thor, who is panting and flushed and utterly delectable. Loki could just eat him up, but toys are no fun unless they're broken. 

He smooths out his tone, pitches it just above mildly disinterested, and gets out of his recliner again to walk in a slow, calculated circle below and around where the wet tentacles are still holding Thor, still caressing him, fondling him.

(If Loki were to be honest, he would admit he was a little jealous of his own creations, being able to touch that magnificent body like that. But there comes a time when you have to experiment and try new, interesting things.) 

Thor just chokes out, "You are the most despicable being in all of the Nine Realms, you really are—" and then Loki mimics a slow pulling motion, dragging a tendril to brush against Thor's lips, before slipping it inside to gag him, to tease Thor's tongue, to silence him. Thor's voice is guttural, is absolutely arousing when he's brutal and unruly in the heat of battle and sex, but it excites Loki to silence him too, occasionally, to gag him and really strip away his control.

He often wonders why Thor allows him to play these games with him, at times. Of course he had hesitated, in the beginning, but as the years flew… well. There have never been occasions where they've descended to these depths of depravity, with Loki's conjuring tentacles of all things, but Thor has somewhat humored his tastes, gone along with him on their sexual misadventures in Asgard, even back when they really thought they were brothers and still enjoying the taste of pleasure that was supposedly forbidden to them, not nearly contrite enough to regret how perfect they fit against one another as they rocked together, hot friction unbearable as they moved in rhythm to a close. 

Thor has never really said no, never denied him; it wasn't pity, it wasn't indulging. Loki knew a liar when he saw one. He was Loki Silvertongue, the Liesmith. No one could lie to him without something giving them away; he knew these things. 

He knew Thor wanted those things as much as he did, knew it in the strained line of Thor's lips as he hungered for Loki as fiercely as Loki did him, knew it in the bruising grip of Thor's hands as Loki rode him to completion, knew it in the way Thor's voice broke as he moaned Loki's name repeatedly while he thrashed against invisible bonds into Loki's wet, willing mouth. Given all the humiliation and the indignity he often subjected Thor to (and vice-versa, if Loki felt up to a little share of ignominy for himself), Loki was constantly amazed Thor didn't retaliate, or at least protest.

Loki thinks that for all Thor might not understand him, he doesn't quite understand Thor, either, even if he can predict him, or read him, or map out all the wonderful spots across the canvas of his sleek body that make him want more of Loki, always more.

Thor almost begs without words, shivers into the folds of Loki's magic. He's feeling generous, Loki is, so Loki crooks a finger, sighs theatrically and flashes a smirk, all coy confidence and lazy superiority at Thor. "How are you holding up over there?"

The glare Thor sends his way speaks volumes, but his body's reactions do, too. Loki holds a hand out in front of him, curves it in a small, unassuming circle and watches attentively as a tendril obeys his gesture of a command, circling and nudging between Thor's legs to gently pry them apart. A frisson of banked excitement washes through him when Thor moans at the contact, arching more for it despite himself.

Time for a little more hands-on action, then.

He disappears in a circle of smoke, reappearing again so that he's levitating in front of Thor, all arrogance and green eyes. Thor's eyes are closed now, shut tight, his skin sweat-slick and heady. Loki drifts forward, nuzzling at Thor's neck, brushes an elegant finger up Thor's cock and drinks in the resulting shudder greedily.

"What do you want?" He breathes, and he's hard, too, from wanting Thor. They will never escape this vicious cycle, this endless loop of want and remorse and hatred and love and lust. Loki thinks he never wants to find a way out of this chaos, and he suspects Thor shares his sentiments. 

Thor's a little broken now, wet and wanton, breath coming in little hitches and stuttering groans as a tentacle breaches him, slow one moment, and a rough turn the next. Loki smiles against Thor's mouth, nips hard enough to draw blood, shifts his hands around his not-brother's neck and pulls him down for a kiss that's not quite a kiss, more like a fierce clash of teeth and tongues as Thor summons just enough energy to retaliate in his passion, even as the slick tendrils caress those little spots of pleasure behind his balls that make him see stars and go slack in Loki's arms.

There's a mumble against his lips, then his neck as Thor bites hungrily at Loki's neck, his jawline, as if he can't get enough. Loki pulls back, a little cruelly, reveling in the stricken, frustrated expression that crosses Thor's face when he does. "What was that?"

Thor growls, " _Loki_ ," and his voice rings like the king that could be, the brother, the lover that he is ever so familiar with. It makes Loki shiver. "Cease toying with me this instant."

Loki feigns surprise. "But I never do that," he murmurs, tongue tracing Thor's symbol against Thor's earlobe. "I always give you what we both want, do I not?"

Thor manages a huffed laugh at that. "You're very much a tease, Loki. You know it, and you know that I know it. You just like the attention…" His voice trails off into a single hot breath, and Loki leans back, tugs with purpose at Thor's loose blond strands to remind him who's in control. 

"Maybe I do," Loki purrs, works the tentacles so they're just pushing lightly at Thor's hole, moves another to pull and nudge at Thor's neglected cock, full and red. "But remember this, brother: if I'm the one who likes attention, you're the one who likes having me like this. You like having me dominate you, having me play you like an instrument until you break and snap at my whim." 

" _Brother_ ," Thor says, almost a plea, arching into Loki's touch, leaning in to kiss at his neck, at any bit of Loki he can get. 

"You do enjoy it, I think," Loki continues thoughtfully, shifting his extra magical limbs to caress Thor's back, to pinch and knead and mark, because he _can._ "What would our warriors see if they could see you now, the future King of Asgard, the mighty Thor, splayed out like a common whore for me, for only me, to take and use as I please?"

He really does think Thor has a thing for dirty talk, because his brother's cock jumps, suddenly, and Loki flicks a hand to wrap a long, long tendril at the base of Thor's cock, tight and punishing. Thor cries out, a strangled sob. "Damn you," Thor chokes out, throwing his head back at the pain-pleasure-pain of being brought to the edge and to be yanked away from release so abruptly. "Damn you, Loki! I _loathe_ you—"

"You don't, really," Loki says pleasantly, and his eyes lock on Thor's. Loki knows it to be true the other way around, as well. He says he loathes Thor, that he loathes Asgard and everything it stands for, but he— well. Emotions are a complex, difficult problem, and Loki locks away whatever he can to avoid thinking about it. It is dreadfully troublesome. 

But he worries, sometimes, that Thor can see the truth behind his eyes, can see into him and read all that he cannot say. Because Loki is terrified Thor will know, that Thor will have pity on him — but most of all, he is terrified that Thor will say yes, say he wants him back, say he wants all of Loki the way Loki wants to devour and possess all of Thor. 

"You say you do, but you like this. You really do. Your body cannot lie to me, Thor. Time and time and time again, you've moaned and bucked shamelessly into my fingers, my touch, my hot mouth, taking everything and anything I give you, giving everything and anything I can wrest away from you. But you love it most of all when I punish you like this, when I do what I want and you are powerless to stop me, powerless at the hands of Loki Laufeyson, Thor Odinson."

Thor swallows a whimper when his nipples are teased, pinched almost cruelly and when Loki manipulates the tentacles to return to push into him, a torturous pace. "You love it when I defile you." Loki's clever fingers replace the appendages sliding up and down Thor's cock, and he resumes the rhythm they'd set smoothly with aplomb. "You love it when I use you, take you again and again until you're sore from our fucking, until you lose your voice from the times I make you cry out my name. Because you're so vocal, brother, you really are, I wonder how our antics have gone unnoticed for so long, because you do so love it when I make you _scream_ —"

 Beyond coherence now, Thor moans, a long and obscene sound. Loki is already painfully hard as is, and his brother coming undone before him nearly snatches his release from him, _nearly_. He does something wicked to the crown, a quick twist that has never failed to make the proud, proud Thor _beg,_ and sure enough, Thor reaches for him, scrabbles his fingers futilely against Loki’s arm, breath stuttering and heavy with need, need to— 

“Come,” Thor says, eyes wild and red. “Please, brother, _please,_ I need to. _Let_ me—”

Ah, but Loki has a cruel streak in him, white-hot sadism that sings in his blood. He has never been one for a quick finish; Loki likes to toy with his chosen prey, drawing out the kill until his opponents beg for mercy, for a sweet and final end at Loki’s spear.

Loki never indulges them until he’s done playing, licked the last of their blood off his blade, the bitter tang of red copper a reminder of his savage triumph.

And so Loki doesn’t indulge Thor, now.

“Hush, my golden one,” Loki chides him, pressing little barely-there kisses to Thor’s ear, his cheek, his brow. He draws his fingers away from where he was teasing Thor, and Thor bellows in his frustration, in his exasperated fury of being denied, a great half-sob that shakes his weakened body against Loki’s. 

Loki shakes his head, eyes glittering. “No, brother. I said, be _silent_.” Something in his words registers, even through Thor’s haze of lust and vertigo, and Thor falls quiet, his chest rising and falling with the occasional sharp intake of breath and strangled moan; Loki isn’t letting up, not even now, and while he’s not even touching Thor, his tentacles are doing the work for him. It’s almost like invisible hands are pushing Thor to the brink, like several different lovers are kissing him, stroking him. The pleasure must be excruciating.

Seiðr whispering malevolently around him, Loki fades and materialises back into existence on the ground, the loose tendrils wrapping around Thor arching towards him, bringing Thor to the ground. Loki waves his arm, blasé, and Thor’s brought to his knees before Loki, hands locked and immovable above him in the snare of the green limbs like a vice.

Thor looks up, a subtle promise of defiance, his eyes somewhat glazed but fixed on Loki’s.

“How I have missed seeing you on your knees before me,” Loki murmurs, soft and smooth as finest silk, and he takes a step forward so that he’s directly in front of Thor. The thought of Thor taking him into his mouth like this while still being thoroughly used and fucked on those tendrils is an arousing one. “It’s been so long, brother. Do you recall our games, from way back when?”

He snaps his fingers again, and a few of his tentacles glow as they transform, becoming long and brutally thin. “I find it hard to remember which treatments I bestowed you enjoyed most,” he says, almost contemplatively, crooks his fingers so that the newly altered tentacles are dangling innocently before him. 

“You liked it when I tied you up for hours, biting you everywhere but your weeping cock.” Thor clenches his teeth at the recollection, and Loki smiles privately; it had been just a little humiliating, having his orgasm wrenched from him with just Loki’s ministrations with his teeth and tongue alone. “You also enjoyed it when I had chains around your neck I would pull when I fucked you, until you almost couldn’t _breathe._ You depraved whore,” Loki breathes. “My depraved whore.”

Thor’s lips are still bloody from how hard he’s biting down on his bottom lip in his efforts to not make any sound. He slips, groans loudly when the tentacles attend to his cock again, slick and wet and _full._ Loki turns abruptly to Thor, slaps him soundly and painfully across the cheek. Crying out, Thor’s eyes are wide with surprise, red blossoming furiously on his cheek like an angry kiss.

“I told you to be quiet.” Loki’s voice is cutting, and his eyes flash scarlet for a moment in his veiled fury as he utters those words like drops of frost. He threads his fingers through Thor’s mess of blond hair, sinks in, and yanks Thor’s hair up painfully to look at Thor unwaveringly in the eye. Thor’s expression has been wiped clean of all arrogance, all defiance; he is the quietest he’s been in a while, his eyes dropping upon contact with Loki as he falls into their old games.

“I don’t care who you believe you are on Asgard now, Thor.” He leans down, nips punishingly hard on an earlobe to make a point, and Thor, to his credit, prevents himself from even uttering the smallest gasp. “I don’t care if you’re the future king of Asgard, the ruler of all the Nine Realms. Here, you are not the Thunderer. You are not a demigod. When you are here, before me, on your knees like this, tentacles so filthily abusing you like the cockslut you are, you are just Thor, my plaything.”

 Thor’s cock _jumps_ at that, and Loki smirks, lets go of Thor’s hair roughly. “I fully intend to remind you of that. Years seem to have dulled the lessons I taught you on your subservience to me, dear brother. When we are done, I will have it written, engraved on your skin with the delicious memories of the pleasure and pain I will be leaving with you.

“We have ages, yet.”

It’s been a while since they’ve lain together, since they’ve last tumbled onto Loki’s bed. Some of the details elude him, but he remembers when he’d last stolen a taste of Thor — the night before what would’ve been his coronation, Thor’s moment of glory. He’d sought Thor out — Thor, who was oblivious and drunk and happy in his arms, who had absolutely no idea how Loki was going to destroy him — and tore at his clothes, leaving angry red welts where he’d bitten and gripped too hard, too quickly. 

Thor’d given back as good as he got, a little confused at Loki’s unleashed passion that night, but mistaking it for the fierce joy he must’ve thought Loki harboured for him, on his behalf.

He hated Thor then, viciously, utterly. How he’d crowed to himself when he’d first dragged Thor down with him with his persuasive kisses, the turn of his silver tongue as he’d beckoned Thor to his chambers. Loki’d been so proud of his malevolence, certain he’d gotten one over Thor, because when Thor touched him and fucked into him and groaned into his mouth over and over again through the dark nights, he was no longer the infallible, perfect son. With Loki, he was nothing; he was just another sinner, a darker thing not worthy of the light, just like Loki. 

Yes, Loki had felt so secure in that one victory, for debauching Thor so. And he still does, except when he recalls hazy words and too-knowing blue eyes, lingering caresses against his throat, lips that murmured endearments against his scars when Thor was convinced Loki was deep in the shadowy throes of slumber. 

He had been so sure, and then he wasn’t, not anymore.

Loki cannot afford that kind of uncertainty now, not when Thor’s before him, on his knees, all but begging for it.

 There is no warning when the modified tentacles strike Thor, once, then twice — thin and ruthless spikes of pain against his back. Thor jerks forward with a sharp gasp, his hands still firmly frozen in place above him, but his knees are reddening as he twists, pushing against and away from the floor, seemingly torn between the ecstasy of the blows and the harshness of the lashes. He bites down on the cries Loki is sure would slip through if he’d not forbidden him; Loki speaks the truth when he says Thor is vocal, and always has been.

Loki smiles.

“Look at you, Thor.” he mocks. Thor’s eyes follow his every movement, his body perfectly still — slipping back into the clandestine routine of their old games. Loki uncurls his palm and calls a dagger of frost into being, sharp and cruelly cold, uses it to tilt Thor’s chin upwards. 

 Thor keeps his mouth set in a straight, stubborn line as Loki toys with him, digging the ice dagger just below the edge of his jaw, just deep enough to draw blood. It’s not the pain that gets to him, Loki thinks, but the cold; Thor winces, moving a little out of reflex. 

 Loki notices, of course. “Getting a little cold, is it?” He says, conversationally. “I find that a little experimentation goes a long way.”

 Thor doesn’t ask what Loki means, but draws his eyes away and keeps them downcast when Loki nudges his ice blade away, and pulls Thor to his feet by his neck so roughly he stumbles. Loki’s breaths are loud in the jarring silence as he swipes a wet lick over where he’s cut Thor’s jaw, and he pushes with the edge of the blade just below Thor’s throat, drawing a whisper-light line of red.

 It thrills him.

 As before, Thor doesn’t flinch from the cut, but the bite of the frost leaves him shaken, shivering. Loki has teased Thor with blades long before in their strange, twisted curiosity — never cutting too deep, but just enough to create a quick nip of pain and pleasure both that adds a certain level of excitement to their play. He has never used his blades of ice, however, for the obvious reason: just scarce months earlier, both Thor and Loki had been unaware of Loki’s heritage.

 He presses his lips to the cuts he’s made, and takes pleasure in Thor’s shifting against him at the sting of it, the pleasure of it. Thor is still hard and aching, and he’s subconsciously bucking against Loki now, desperate to touch, desperate for release. He’ll never get bored of torturing Thor like this, not when Thor is iniquity personified this way.

 “You’ve remained quiet throughout,” Loki murmurs in reluctant approval, dark eyebrows furrowing. He magicks the ice blade into non-existence, and crooks a finger around Thor’s cock. “I suppose I should reward you for that, Thor.”

Thor snaps his eyes shut tightly, breathing hard.

 Loki smiles, fiendish. “What do you think? _Should_ I reward you?” He tucks the edge of a nail under the crown, raking it lightly to sharpen the exquisite pain. It’s exactly what Thor’s always liked, and Loki’s smile widens. 

 “You may answer,” Loki says, amused, because Thor’s remained quiet to not disobey his orders from earlier, sweat beading on his brow from the effort.

 “ _Please_ ,” Thor says brokenly after a fashion, in a ragged rasp, Loki’s fingers tapping against his cock. 

 “Perhaps I shall, then,” he responds, dropping to his knees before Thor, and he feels gratified at the way Thor gasps in surprise. An idea comes to him, and he smirks. Thor will not be expecting this.

 He drags the flat of his tongue down Thor’s length, taking in the soft heat. Loki has always rather liked tasting Thor, liked swallowing him whole and hearing him cry out in shocked pleasure so loudly, Loki thought the whole of Asgard would be able to hear him. It’s a kind of power, Loki thinks dreamily, to be able to bring entire empires to their knees with his tongue with his skills of diplomacy, and another to make a god come undone like this, raw and real, with his mouth on his cock.

 Loki does so love being drunk on power.

 “I like it when you beg,” he murmurs, teeth grazing ever so lightly against the skin, because he’s all but trained Thor to enjoy the gentlest bite of pain to go with pleasure. It’s practically conditioning. “In your dark, lusty voice, the one you use to lead us into battle, the voice that so many of our enemies have heard ringing in the chaos of war before you killed them, brutal and merciless. You beg so very prettily, don’t you? It’s difficult to not acquiesce to your requests.”

 Thor’s noisy above him throughout Loki’s one-sided conversation with him, all grunts and gasps as he moves against Loki’s mouth,  _still_ noisy as the tentacles breach him at the exact same moment Loki takes him entirely into his mouth. Loki sucks in his cheeks, drags his palms up Thor’s thighs, spreads them apart before he teases the rim of Thor’s hole with his fingers coated in the slick from the tentacles, and begins another kind of cruel rhythm; Loki swallows and moves his mouth down Thor’s length to the base while the tendrils fuck into Thor, in and out.

 He flicks his gaze upwards, pleased when he sees Thor’s eyes screwed shut, mouth open as he shouts himself hoarse through the two-pronged assault on his body. Loki has known that kind of pleasure during the curious experimentations he’d initiated in his youth, fantasising about it being Thor doing things like having his mouth on him so while something else fucks him from behind. Luckily for Loki, one could achieve a great many things with sorcery, and not all of them pure and benign; he’d learned as much through the years, and he imagines Thor is learning that particular lesson very effectively at this very moment.

Loki twists his head sharply and has his tongue swirl about Thor’s cock something wicked, lending a bite of ice to the tip. Thor swears and rocks up so hard into his mouth Loki nearly gags, but he pulls his lips back and scrapes his teeth over Thor’s crown as punishment, smirking vindictively when Thor whimpers. 

He caresses the tender skin beneath Thor’s stones with a touch of cold to his fingers, too; Thor jerks uncontrollably at that, and Loki pulls away at the very last moment, slide of tongue teasing as he moves and encircles Thor’s cock at the base, denying him his release once more.

“ _Why_ ,” Thor chokes, desperation framing his words like a vice, as he comes down from that high. Loki’s gratified to see angry tears of frustration prickling at the edges of those blue eyes, slows the tendrils down so that they thrust into Thor more slowly than they did before, leisurely, lazily.  “Why would you even... Loki! You are a cruel godling, cruel and _pitiless_ —”

Loki turns his hand around so that his palm faces upwards, and draws a thoughtful line up Thor’s cock with the still-wintery touch of his fingertip, laughing quietly when Thor’s words get cut off with an agonised cry. “Such harsh words! You do not give me enough credit,” Loki says, brushing more of his cold-tipped fingers against Thor’s heat, now. 

"Have care how you speak to me.” His voice dips, low and threatening. “If you should offend me, I can and will leave you here, just like this. I’ll have these,” Loki gestures carelessly at the tentacles, “continue fucking into you, painfully slow, so that you feel every drag and slide and thrust against your sweet spot, but never have enough of that pleasure to experience your release. I’ll continue to touch you,” a squeeze of Thor’s cock for emphasis, “Tease you, oh yes, play with you until you’re wrecked, until you are completely destroyed. Undone, unmade, my tentacles in you and my tongue around your cock. Wouldn’t that be a lovely way to go, though? Wouldn’t you like that?”

Thor laughs weakly, but it’s a trial. “Aye, but I’d rather not so soon, if it’s all the same to you.” 

Loki licks a trail up Thor’s stomach, tastes the quivering that follows his tongue. “You’re not in the position to make any decisions, Thunderer. I am.”

“Oh, but it’s relevant to your interests,” Thor gasps as Loki crooks two fingers and the tentacles slide over where he feels the most pleasure inside him, cold at their tips. “I’d no longer be your plaything then, would I, Trickster?”

“You do have a point, I admit.” Loki tightens his hand into a fist, and pulls down. Thor falls on his back against the ground with a grunt, jaw set in a tight line. “I do want you around for quite some time, my lovely golden brother.”

“What are you doing?” Thor asks warily as Loki straddles him and his clothes fall away in a green swirl of seiðr. “You...”

Loki tsks at him and pins him down more forcefully with another few tentacles wrapping around his arms and legs with purpose, spreading him apart, still breaching him slowly. “You ask too many questions, Thor. Isn’t it so much more pleasant to sit back and take what I have to give to you?”

He coats his own fingers with the tentacle slick now before he slides them inside himself from the front, and has the satisfaction of hearing Thor groan aloud. “Like what you see, then?” He sinks down and grinds his cock deliberately against Thor’s, biting his lip down in pleasure even as he works himself open. 

Loki has always been a tease, and has always loved showing off for Thor. In _that_ , at least, Thor was right.

“Always,” Thor says roughly, voice husky with desire and longing. Loki pulls his fingers out and spreads his legs wider where he’s straddling Thor, and smiles at Thor’s expression.

“Good,” Loki says, as he calls more thin tendrils into being. They snake up behind him, crawling up his thighs, wet and almost hungry. “Because you’re about to get a show.”

Thor’s eyes widen then, and Loki moans as they enter him, sliding movements curious and intent. He bucks against Thor when he does, and Thor grits his teeth as he looks at Loki, his cock jerking against Loki’s with his arousal. He can’t take his eyes off Loki, and Loki absolutely _loves_ it.

“Ah,” Loki manages even as the tentacles thicken. “Some things really _don’t_ change. You still like watching me when I’m like this, don’t you?”

“Hard not to.” Thor stares at him unabashedly, a wanton thing with tentacles up his arse. He supposes he can’t blame Thor. 

“Do you want to be inside me, then?” Loki has the tentacles slip out of him, and he all but slides up against Thor, sinuous and slick with sweat, panting against Thor’s skin. “Can you imagine how wet and open I am now, how easily I would slide onto your cock?”

Thor writhes underneath him as Loki sprawls his limbs over Thor, touches every available stretch of skin he can get at, kissing and nibbling and teasing, always teasing. His fingers dance down Thor’s side as he pushes him down, hard and helpless, gripping at Thor’s cock and circles the head around his entrance.

It drives Thor positively mad, and Loki can feel Thor’s hardness straining, jerking, the familiar thickness of the head welcome and incredibly arousing. It’s been so long, but the months have hardly diminished his hunger for Thor, to always have him completely at his mercy like this. He suspects he’s insatiable in that regard, but Loki doesn’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing.

“Are you ready for me?” Loki smiles, teeth and taunt. “You can feel me, prepared and open, the inviting heat. Do you want to fuck me, brother? Fuck me to the hilt, bury yourself deep within me as I ride you hard, like one of our stallions?” Thor’s cock is wet, too, from his desire, and it thrills him. “I’ll clench around you, tight and sweet, better than any cunt, better than any whore, better than anything and anyone you’ll ever know.”

Finally, finally, he sinks down gently on the tip, feeling the gentle burn of Thor’s width begin to stretch him. Loki grits his teeth and grips at Thor’s shoulders, willing the tentacles fucking into Thor to match his pace, slow but sure. “When you fuck them next, you’ll think of me, think of me tasting you, baiting you, and how much you wanted me, and how much you always will.”

He makes the mistake of looking up at Thor as he moves down, taking Thor deeper inside him. “I’ve always wanted you, Loki.” Thor says, low voice hitching as Loki clenches around him, pressing on. Loki pants and reels from the shock of it, tries to shut Thor’s voice, Thor’s words out, those _infernal_ words, but they keep coming, in a strange echo of his own scant moments ago. “You’re the only one I’ll ever want like this, the only one I want, Loki, please—”

"You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Loki bites out, rotating his hips and cutting Thor’s words off, straddling him proper as he begins to rock, nails painting wrecked paths of red down Thor’s skin. “You don’t.”

“But I do.” And Thor’s bucking against him now, meeting him thrust for thrust. “By all that’s sacred in the Nine Realms, I do.”

“Just shut up and fuck me,” Loki hisses, feeling a flare of shame between the moments of pain blending into pleasure. “Fuck me, damn you. That’s all I want from you; that’s all that matters.” He spreads his own legs wider, pressing down more urgently as Thor moves with him. 

“You lie,” Thor looks away from him, fucking into him faster, hips snapping up as Loki’s feet bump against Thor’s legs, sweat slicking their movements as they slide together. 

“I am the trickster,” Loki says bitterly, moaning again as Thor circles his own hips in retaliation, brushing over where he feels the most pleasure. Thor knows his body well, and in some instances, probably better than Loki himself. It galls him. “I am the liesmith,” Gripping at Thor’s neck, his other hand yanking Thor’s chin upwards to look at him, so that their eyes lock, green on blue. “I am Loki. Lying is what I do. It’s what I am.”

In his distraction, he let the tentacles’ grip loosen. Thor pries his arms away from the whispering, slick slide of the tendrils, gently pushes a palm up over Loki’s chest as he sits up with Loki still straddling him. He spreads his fingers there, as if he’s trying to capture and keep Loki’s heartbeat, like a precious thing.

Loki can’t bear it. He raises his hand, ready to command them back, to restrain Thor in place, but something in Thor’s eyes stops him.

Thor’s other hand is a vice on his hip, gripping him tightly as he continues to fuck him, steady and rough and reckless the way they both like it, but it’s at odds with the way he’s touching Loki. “You lie,” Thor agrees softly, and the hand over Loki’s heart moves to cup his cheek. 

It’s tender and painful and everything Loki never knew he wanted, it makes him want to scream. “Don’t _pity_ me! Don’t think you know me, don’t think,” Loki sputters in his fury, the tentacles rearing behind him, but his attention slips and then Thor’s breaking free of them, flipping them both over so that Loki’s the one on his back now, Thor climbing over him and sliding into him again with one smooth stroke. Loki closes his eyes, biting his bottom lip at how bloody good it feels; he, like Thor, can’t get enough of this, of what they’ve always had. Not like he’ll ever admit as much to Thor.

“I do know you,” Thor says sadly, firmly, submission falling away from him like snow. “I know you, Loki, and love you. You’re the Liesmith, the God of Chaos. But I am yours, as much as you are mine. Even if you do not know it.”

That strikes a nerve. Loki bristles, and the tendrils dance, though they seem cowed, slithering away from the both of them. “You know nothing, prince of Asgard,” Loki spits, bucking up against him and taking him in deeper, smirking nastily when Thor groans in helpless pleasure, slamming back against him too. “I don’t want you the way you think I do. I just want to fuck. Everybody wants a rough, hard fuck, don’t they? Who we are doesn’t matter in this place, I’m just going to use you and abuse you any way I want until I am satisfied, and then I’m going to discard you. Discard you, the way I discard any of my other toys. Do you hear me?”

“You don’t really believe that,” Thor’s voice cracks, something like hurt bleeding through, and it shouldn’t make guilt churn restlessly inside Loki, but it does. He fucks into Loki harder now, putting all his unrestrained power into it, beginning to really fuck him in earnest. Loki had thought Thor was really letting go earlier, but he’d forgotten how strong a lover Thor was, how forceful. He seethes at how his body betrays him, cock growing ever harder at the thought, even as the guilt continues to burn. “Everything can’t have been a lie, Loki.” Thor phrases that like a question.

“And what if it was?” Loki looks up at him, those loose strands of golden hair falling into his face and prickling at his skin, so familiar, so loathed, so beloved. He lies, lies with all his heart, lies with his fucking, even. He can only hope Thor falls for this last trick, because Loki won’t suffer anymore pity, anymore affection. It was never meant to become like this, he thinks in rage and despair. He was supposed to break Thor again, humiliate him. “I am incapable of love, you fool. I don’t even know what possessed you to harbour those thoughts in the first place.” He twists his mouth into a sneer, the cruelest he can muster. “I told you. You are but a toy to me, and one of many at that.”

“Stop lying!” Thor snaps at him, speeding up his thrusts and gripping at Loki’s hips, pulling him down against him. Loki gasps and laughs, injecting as much malice into his voice even as he rocks back against Thor, matching him. He can feel heat coiling low in his belly, a curl of building pleasure; from the way Thor’s groaning and moving with him, he can tell that Thor is close, too. “Your tongue, your lying tongue. Will you not tell the truth for once? I should cut it off, liesmith!”

Hooking his arms around Thor’s shoulders and neck, he pulls Thor closer to him, pulls him down. “You wouldn’t want that, Thor,” he says, breathless, between moans. “Think of all the things I wouldn’t be able to do to your cock then, without this silver tongue of mine you enjoy so much. My lips and teeth and tongue on you, going down and lower still. You’d miss it, I think.” The heat is exquisite, the wet burning feel of skin like the call of a siren, urging him on.

Thor hisses at him, tangling fingers in his hair, rough but not cruel, never cruel. Cruelty is Loki’s game, a game that Thor has never stooped to learn the rules of. “Stop deflecting me.” 

“Oh, nicely observed, well-done,” Loki says sweetly, and shuts his eyes in pain when Thor pulls at his hair tightly. He mouths at Thor’s shoulder, sucking a bruise there in response, marking him in reprimand. It’s more intimate, this; the tentacles might be an extension of Loki’s psyche and magic, but this, this has always been different. He laves at the raw, dark thing with his tongue, smiling when Thor shudders above him, words and conversation forgotten. Loki can feel Thor stiffening, and he clenches down hard around Thor’s cock, takes Thor all the way inside him.

“Loki.” Thor loosens his grip on Loki’s hair, shifts them both and reaches blindly for Loki’s hand around his neck. He unhooks Loki’s arm from around his shoulders, pulls Loki’s hand over his head and links their fingers together, firm and unrelenting. His lips brush gently against Loki’s cheek, and then Thor kisses him, long and intent and deep, almost desperate. Loki shudders too, feeling Thor spill inside him, and reaches down to bring himself off—

A hand bats his fingers away, and then Thor’s reaching down between them, palming and gently stroking Loki’s cock, still thrusting into him. Loki cries out, arching when Thor pulls at him firmly, once, twice, before he’s gone, shaking as he pulses between them, hot slick coating them both. Thor doesn’t let up, just continues to stroke him slowly, coaxing every single last drop from him, and Loki just lies back, feeling like he’s been fucked boneless. He thinks it’s probably nothing compared to the countless minutes of torment he’s put Thor through with the tendrils earlier, but Loki can’t be bothered with that right now. 

“See, that wasn’t too bad, was it?” He stretches below Thor, lazy, resisting the urge to curl up on the cold floor. The tentacles fade as he gives a little wave of his hand, and he sighs as he feels the magic rushing back inside him, replenishing his energy. Thor’s quiet above him, sprawled on Loki, nose and chin tucked into the crook of Loki’s neck. His lips rest on the little slope where Loki’s shoulder meets his collarbone, almost reverent, tender. “Now get off me, you oaf.” He shakes their joined hands meaningfully, hoping Thor will get the hint and unlock their fingers. 

Thor doesn’t release his hand. If anything, his fingers curl tighter around Loki’s when he moves over to his side, pulling Loki’s hand down between their bodies. He runs a thumb over Loki’s cheek, as if he can’t believe Loki is here, still. “I came to see you, because I missed you.” Thor says, quietly. “Even if I did attack you because of my temper, and my grief, I just... needed. I meant everything I said.”

Loki ignores the peculiar warmth he feels at Thor’s words, but he sneers anyway, pulling away from Thor. He doesn’t try to let go of Thor’s hand, though. “And so did I. You mean nothing to me. Need is for the weak. How did you sink so low, Thor?”

Thor shakes his head, even though Loki feels the flinch that goes through his body at that. Little red marks and bruises are all over Thor’s back, Thor’s chest. His handiwork. Only he can mar Thor this way, break him this way, take him this way. Again and again and again. He’d be damned if the Midgardian woman or anyone else were to touch what is his, what belongs to Loki. 

The God of Chaos does not take kindly to being trifled with. Thor is _his._

__

Seconds pass, and then Thor just sighs, a pained sound. “Call me weak if you must,” Thor says, resignation echoing in every syllable, and he leans down to brush his lips against Loki’s forehead. “Your words are just words. Shining, hurtful things, just like the knives you wield, but words nonetheless. I suppose my words wouldn’t hold any weight, either.” His fingers slip from between Loki’s, just the slightest bit, but Loki still doesn’t break their linked hands. He flicks a gaze to their intertwined fingers, incredulous, wondering why he can’t just bring himself to. 

Why he doesn’t want to.

Thor seems to notice, and his mouth curves into a weak smile, a faltering thing. He sits up, brings their joined hands to his mouth, and presses a kiss to the back of Loki’s knuckles, grazing lightly over each small bump and dip. It’s like he’s trying to memorise the feel of them. He looks at Loki intently, blue eyes searching, and it’s like he’s trying to memorise how Loki looks like, too; trying to commit what he can see to memory.

It feels like a goodbye.

“You’re too skilled a liar for me, brother mine,” Thor murmurs. “I can’t tell your lies from your truths, and I’ve never been able to. Perhaps I never will.”

Loki stays there, unmoving, as if frozen in place. There’s a roaring in his ears as he looks at Thor standing up with his back to Loki, every inch the proud god, even in his nakedness. “What are you doing?” Loki says finally, finding his voice when Thor moves towards a closet. 

“Well, I’ll have to leave,” Thor says curtly. “I’ll have to find some clothes in this dwelling of yours so that I can get back to The Avengers.” He holds out his hand, and Mjölnir flies to his outstretched palm.

Sharp resentment sparks in Loki at Thor’s tone, even if it _is_ well-deserved after what Loki did to him, and how Loki pushed him away. “Not like I’d give you any, if I could help it.” He spits out the words spitefully. “I should just let you leave like this, let you truly taste what humiliation is like.”

Thor stops abruptly, and turns around, having put on a pair of pants and a shirt that’s still unbuttoned. His face is quiet thunder, expression like a building storm. Loki waits for the fire of his provocation to ignite, to set Thor off, but it doesn’t come. Thor just looks at him darkly, his anger like a simmering boil. “I have fallen, before. I have known what it is like to be without my powers. I have been mocked, chastised, _humbled._ You think I don’t know what humiliation is like, Loki? I’ll tell you what it’s like.” He steps towards Loki, threatening. Loki automatically takes a step back. 

There’s a palpable aura around Thor, sparks of electricity flickering around him, his power stirring. “Humiliation is not having you overpower me, be it by seiðr or otherwise. It’s not having you use me, having you fuck me like a whore however it pleases you. Humiliation is not being left an exiled prince in a foreign land while my younger brother takes the throne. So help me, you could probably make a better king than I in many more ways than one.” Thor’s in his personal space now, eyes shadowed and boring into his own.

“Humiliation is wanting you, giving you everything when you ask for it, only to be spat on and sneered at time and time again. Humiliation is loving you, from afar and from up close, yearning for you always when you are beside me because you are distant even when we are together. Having you push me away when I need you most. Humiliation is meaning nothing to you, even after all this time. After all we’ve been through. After I gave you my heart, after you destroyed it utterly, even after I still returned to you like a pathetic fool because of this accursed _love_ I feel for you. _Nothing!"_

Thor turns angrily away from him, little jolts of lightning visible and jumping about his skin, fading as he takes in deep breaths and buttons up the rest of his shirt. Loki almost follows in his footsteps, unthinkingly, almost reaches out to tug at that shirt and pull him back, to stop Thor from moving away from him, to stop Thor from thinking of leaving.

But what, then? They are enemies now; Thor is sworn to protect Midgard from Loki’s so-called follies, his urge to destroy. Loki wants nothing more now than to destroy everything his brother holds close to his heart, to make him feel all the pain Loki has suffered, all the abandonment and the rage.

Or does he?

The line of Thor’s back is rigid, his grip on Mjölnir harsh and unforgiving, veins standing out from the back of his hand. Loki recoils when Thor turns to him suddenly, anguished. “I don’t ever want to see you again,” Thor says, after a moment. He tightens his grip on Mjölnir, if that’s even possible. Loki can’t take his eyes away from Thor now, majestic in his rage and grief, power flowing from him. “The next time I see you, Loki _Laufeyson_ —” His true name coming from Thor’s lips feels like a slap to the face. “—it will be the last. The last time, aye, because I will slay you, god of lies. Endless, endless lies.” Thor spits at Loki’s feet. “I am _done_.”

He should have seen it coming. Terror seizes him at the thought of Thor truly _leaving_ , ceasing to love him. At the thought of Thor treating Loki like nothing, like Loki doesn’t matter, at the thought of Thor _hating_ him, truly loathing him.

Like everybody else.

Hopelessness yawns inside a deeper part of his heart, too little and too late.

And yet, his vile and traitorous tongue betrays him still. “Go, then. And see if I care,” he finds himself saying. “We can never be. Did you actually believe there was a way out of this ruin? The only path that lies ahead for us both is that of destruction, of blood and shattered stones. Ever since I tricked you all those years ago, pulling you down to tumble between my sheets, it’s all been smoke and mirrors. Pretty words and pretty lies, pretty moans and pretty sighs.” 

Loki laughs, acerbic, his frame shaking a little. With fear, he thinks, disgusted with himself. He’s always been alone, Thor’s abandoning him won’t make a difference now. “You’ve always been a good toy, waiting so obediently for me, taking everything I gave you.” Flashes of Thor in chains, Thor pinning him down, Thor mouthing tenderly against the dip of his hip. “I am Loki Silvertongue. Surely you knew better than to believe in my lies, Thunderer, you naïve thing. I’m disappointed in you.”

“You didn’t lie all the time.” Thor’s brows knit, his expression unreadable; he’s shaking too, gritting his teeth hard as he reins in his temper. “I know you more than you believe I do. There were times when you were vulnerable, when you needed me, when you sought me out. Your actions told me all I needed to know, when your tongue would not speak the truth.”

“Shows how much you know,” Loki shoots back. Something claws at him inside, as he screams for Thor to stop him, all within the confines of his mind. But he plunders on with his lies despite it all, relentless, unable to stop them spilling from his lips as if he’s been afflicted with a malicious curse. Once a liar, always a liar. “Shows how much you believe you truly understand. Someone who doesn’t deserve love like myself is incapable of love, or weren’t you listening? There is nothing here for you, there is nothing you should want, and there is nothing I want from you that you have not already given me, that I have exploited. Just leave, Thor. You sicken me.”

He lets that fade in the hollowness of the room for a while, ignoring the slivers of truth that he let slip between the lies.

“Just leave!” Loki snarls, hostility ringing from every syllable, control sliding from his grasp. 

Thor hesitates, hand pressed against the window. 

“I do not want you here.” He looks away from Thor, unable to meet his eyes. This lie he cannot tell without giving part of himself away, the desperation and the true yearning he feels. Loki has lived his years in denial of how much he _does_ want Thor to be there, to stop him, to be the one to redeem him. He’s ignored that gnawing desire all this time, consumed in the fires of his hatred for everything; himself, most of all.

"Loki,” Thor gently nudges him out of his reverie with that one word, and it unsettles him because of the way Thor says it, a meld of wonder and warmth. Loki looks up at him in surprise, and then he realises why: he’s crying. He doesn’t know how he missed it, but now he can feel the tears falling quietly on his cheeks, hot and unwanted.

The vulnerability he feels at the realisation is staggering, and he laughs uncertainly, brushing at his cheeks and looking at his wet palm in disbelief. “Why?” Loki asks, talking more to himself than to Thor. “Why now?” He laughs again, hysteria beginning to wash over him as the hated tears begin to fall faster. “Why do my own emotions betray me?”

He falls to his knees and continues laughing, because he’s lost the game. He’s lost the game, broken the rules, and now it _is_ too late. Loki has revealed everything without meaning to, and Thor is still going to leave him, leave him in this pathetic state in this pathetic room and Loki’s spectacular display of weakness.

“Laugh all you want,” he says, his smile cracking. He wants to scream, to throw something. Just a few minutes ago, he was proud and cruel and unyielding. Now? Loki’s just a mess, like he always has been. For all that he taunts Thor, calling him a toy he can discard at any time, a toy to be used... Loki’s the one that is abandoned, left behind, ignored and discarded in the shadows. The dark thing that doesn’t belong anywhere. Not on Asgard, not on Jötunheim, not on any of the worlds in the Nine Realms. Unwanted. “I can hardly blame you. You wanted to see the real me, did you? Look your fill!” 

He’s lost it all.

Shame and pride and guilt and regret stir within him, emotions he feels so strongly it leaves Loki breathless, and he’s gasping futilely for air between sobs, trying to keep them at bay. What a sight _he_ must make now, weeping like a broken fool, ugly with his tears. 

It takes him by surprise then when Thor moves in a blur, his long shirt whipping as he runs towards Loki and envelops him in a fierce embrace, his arms locking around Loki’s shoulders. He blinks, and then Thor’s tucking his chin near Loki’s neck, burying his nose in Loki’s thick dark hair. “You idiot,” Thor murmurs, soft and close and so painfully dear. Loki can almost hear his defenses crumbling, the way Thor talks to him like that. He’s nearly forgotten that for every time he pushes Thor away, Loki wants to pull him back; Thor’s always returned to him, somehow sensing that hidden and shameful want of Loki’s, always saved him, loved him. 

Yes, Loki is the fool, truly.

“Thor,” Loki manages, the only word he can seem to utter right now. “ _Thor_.” His first word, when they were young, the only word he’d repeat again and again as he stumbled after Thor, golden and wonderful and _there_ in the sunlight. Thor, who would always reach out for him, who would stretch out his hand, take him close and keep him safe. Thor, who would kiss him in quiet alcoves, never ashamed of Loki, never condescending. 

Thor, Loki registers in dull shock, who really was Loki’s everything as much as he claimed that Loki was the centre of his world.

He digs his fingers in deep in the grooves of Thor’s shirt, a broken sound escaping him, and lets go. Thor sinks a hand into Loki’s hair, tugging gently, pushing in close, unbearably close while he murmurs apologies, murmurs promises into Loki's skin. “I’ll never let you go,” Thor vows with finality, warm against him, familiar. “Never again.”

Loki closes his eyes, and feels everything else but Thor fade away.


End file.
